Titusville, Florida to Savannah, Georgia

It's over!!

We have reached the finish! After 27 days of travelling, covering 6,470 miles, we have traversed the United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic. What a great trip it has been. I will do a final summing-up after we return to the UK so, for now, I will just describe our final day of driving.

We left Titusville at around 9.30am for the 300 mile drive due north to Savannah. We first drove through the downtown area of Titusville.

Once we left Titusville, we drove north and Wendy noticed that we were about to reach 10,000 kms for the trip. As the Garmin's odometer only goes up to 9,999, she took another photo as 0000 was displayed!

 

After about fifty miles, I realised I needed to fill up with diesel, so we drove into Daytona Beach, famous for its motor racing history, to find a gas station that sold diesel.. The coastal strip of Daytona Beach is a long island and its beach is lined with high-rise condominiums..

We finally found a gas station that sold diesel and then we drove back across to the mainland, taking one of the beautiful curved bridges.

The previous evening, Bob had called us from St. Augustine and said we had to visit this town. We learned that it is the oldest continuously occupied town in the US and was founded in 1565. We drove through the centre of the historic district and were amazed by the city's wonderful old buildings, which were very Spanish in design.

We then stopped at the old fort, the Castillo de San Marcos. It is a National Park, manned by volunteers dressed in old military uniforms.

We were most impressed with the fort, which has been restored and gives a very good idea of what it was like in its heyday, when it defended the city from attacks by the British.

One of the magnificent Spanish mortars that could fire a cannonball a distance of over a mile.

Views from the ramparts down into the moat and across to the lovely stone bridge across the river in the distance.

A notice explaining that Sir Francis Drake set fire to the city, as well as to a wooden fort in 1586.

We left the fort and drove down to a small bay to have a snack lunch, before driving the remaining 180 miles to Savannah. About halfway to Savannah, we reached the outskirts of Jacksonville. We skirted the city on the I-95 freeway.

A few miles further on, we reached the state border with Georgia, the final state of our drive.

About an hour later we drove into Savannah.

We reached our hotel, The Bohemian, at about 4.30pm. Our drive is over! We checked into the hotel and congratulated ourselves on completing another wonderful drive. It had exceeded our expectations in virtually every respect.

As we started to unpack, we heard a ship's horn sound and we went out on our balcony to see this cargo ship sailing down the Savannah River.

We now have to get the car sorted out, so we can deliver it to the shippers in the morning. This is because Monday, when I had planned to deliver the car, is Memorial Day and the shippers are closed. So, there is not much time to get everything organised.